Handicapping and Sports Gambling 101: Things You Need To Know!

1. Learn about yourself first.

Understand that this is all about harnessing as much control as possible. We beg on player psychology, we beg on math, we beg on statistics…but the first piece of every wager you place, starts with YOU.

This can be good news…or it can be bad news.

If control is the name of the game…then your own adrenaline vs your own psychology can end your sports gambling enjoyment before it even gets started.

Put short, what happened yesterday should never affect how we bet today..

Respect your self-control, your discipline, and your temper.

It’s hard enough getting burned in a 4-point late-game comeback…to have flat out careless and emotionally based choice-making burning your money as well.

Yes, you’ll have to lose your marbles once or twice and wish you hadn’t placed a careless bet.
Fine. No biggie. Just learn from it and consider it a growing pain…but *do* learn from it.

Always exercise only discipline!

2. Walk the line between ‘scared money never wins’ and ‘the game I wish I had bet’.

An excellent exercise for this is to envision the loss before the game starts.
Envision that you’ve lost your wager and now you have to look back at your bet.

Will you say, “aw dang it! I knew I should have left this bet out because of the x y z factor! I knew I shouldn’t have doubled my units on this pick…what was I thinking?!”

OR

Will you say, “hey, you win some and you lose some, it was a good bet based on the information available, but sometimes things just go sideways and tomorrow’s another day. The way I pick is proven to win over the long run and I will stay my course.”

This exercise should help you bet not too much and not too little.
Between 1-3 games a night should be your wheelhouse depending on what’s good out there.

3. Adrenaline

Epinephrine (also known as adrenaline, adrenalin, or 4,5-β-trihydroxy-N-methylphenethylamine) is a hormone and a neurotransmitter.

Do not be fooled for a single deluded second. When you’re sitting there after a team has comeback against your pick, it’s gone into O.T. or Extra Innings, and you are sitting there with your teeth clenched and your whole body is almost shaking, as if you’re living inside of one of the most intense suspense movies that you’ve ever seen…make no mistake, you are most definitely high on some of the most potent drugs on this planet, in every-literal-sense-of-the-word.

So please appreciate the following point:

Betting money that you can’t afford to lose, is the best way to increase your high. Your brain doesn’t care if your team wins or loses, your addiction cares only that the risk is excessive enough to cause physiological changes.

If you allow it, your addiction will develop a tolerance and your own mind will turn against you and it will thoroughly ruin you. I’m talking about gambling addiction. Please know that it’s nothing to joke with.

With that said, there is still tons of fun to be had handicapping sports, but we have to be careful to understand that adrenaline is a direct enemy to smart betting, and always work with that fact in mind.

Do this for the win, and for the satisfaction of being able to pick a winner. ( + money )
Do not do this for the adrenaline. ( – money )

Wet your whistle with $1 – $2 per game until you can prove a positive return on investment.
Once you know what you’re doing and you can prove that you are making money, increase your bet amount. (if you can go 250 days, across 2 different sports, with a positive unit count, let that justify an increase in your betting…let only that…justify an increase.)

Understanding and following this philosophy is a surefire way to ensure that you’re in it for the wins (money), and not for the adrenaline (gambling addiction).

4. Take the fun that you get from sports gambling very seriously.

Just like how “a lack of self control in gambling ruins lives”, it’s also true that, “a solid foundation in self control will make this a worthwhile and very enjoyable endeavour.”

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